


The Difference Between

by sungabraverday



Series: Little Poplin Paylor, President of Panem [6]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: District 8, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/sungabraverday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's two years since Tuck made the decision that lead Poplin Paylor's brother to his death, and now it's too late to mend their broken friendship, because he's gone too. But there is one decision that Poplin might reconsider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Between

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to the people from fan-write-workshop who have seriously helped my writing along, and gave me brilliant advice and recommendations to make this way better than it might otherwise have been.

It wasn't announced officially, but one day there were four blood red flowers left on the front steps of the Justice Building. There was only one place in District Eight where flowers like that grew, right at the edge of the district, by the train station and the Peacekeeper barracks. No one ever saw who put them on the steps, though a few knew that it was Cecelia’s job. Everyone with ties to the rebellions knew what they meant, though: last night, four people died in the fight for freedom. It was all the memorial they received, one swept up before lunch break at the factories.

Poplin hadn't been active with the rebels in almost two years. Two years of biding her time, of grieving for her mother and her brother. Two years of counting the flowers in ever increasing numbers and wishing that Tuck would realise that his way wasn't working. Two years of hoping desperately that those flowers wouldn't represent somebody she loved again.

Tuck didn't show up for his shift that day.

Poplin walked by his house on her way home from work, and the curtains were still drawn shut. Two red flowers sat on the doorstep, confirming her fears. No one lived there anymore. Tuck and Connie were both gone.

It was Cecelia who came to tell her the full story, later that evening. Her best friend in the world was the only one she would ever have accepted the news from, and whoever was left in charge had known that. Was it Vere, now? She had been gone for too long; that was crystal clear now. She might have been able to stop this, but she hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t.

"What were they doing this time?" Poplin asked, voice matching Cecelia's low pitch perfectly.

Cecelia shrugged. "They never told us. I think raiding the Peacekeeper barracks for weapons."

Poplin let her breath out in a hiss. "That was fucking suicide, and they had to know it. Even if they had made it out, how was no one going to figure out that guns were missing? Where was he planning on keeping them? What the hell was he thinking!" 

She choked out a sob, and swallowed against the tears that were threatening to fall. "He wasn't. He never did. God, I loved him. He was my best friend, and for years he was as good as family. But he never ever fucking used his brain." She buried her head in her arms, and took a deep shaking breath, and then another.

When she could breathe again, she looked up into Cecelia’s concerned eyes. "He's a fucking idiot,” she declared, voice remarkably steady. “A fucking idiot. He got exactly what everything he did was leading towards. He died trying to improve this District, just like he always said he would, but he didn't make the damnedest bit of difference except for costing a whole lot of people their lives and making it worse for everyone else. I hope he's happy." The tears were running hot and red and angry down her face. She rubbed them away and swore. "I don't want to cry."

"You're allowed to,” Cecelia whispered, and Poplin realised that the other girl was as distraught as she was. “Because you know what, I know you’re still angry at him, but he was a good person. Remember when we used to play, all three of us in the schoolyard? Those were the best days of my life."

Poplin let out a sob, and nodded. "They were the greatest days. Things were so much simpler then, back before we were forced to grow up." 

"It seems like so long ago. I had so much fun then. And Tuck was so good to us. There was that girl, do you remember her, who made fun of me because my hair was so straight? It was the stupidest thing, but I was in tears, and he made sure that I was okay, and then he went and told her that if she even came near me again he'd beat her bloody."

Poplin laughed, breathy and weak. "That was Tuck. He was always ready to help out when anyone needed a hand. And he was always getting into fights, until no one else wanted to go near him. He was so happy about that.” 

“He was brave and optimistic and maybe a bit stupid, but he was the greatest thing that ever happened to us.” 

“I just... how can I keep doing this? Everyone I have ever cared about is suffering, and it’s my fault.”

“What Tuck did is not your fault, Poplin, and you know it.”

“I could have stopped him. And he’s done so many stupid things in the name of rebellion, Cecelia. He’s hurt so many people, and it only got worse after I stormed out.”

“If you want to make a difference then come back to us, Poplin. We need you, and I think you might need us again.” It was the same plea Cecelia had made hundreds of times since Poplin had left the rebels. It was almost reflexive, but this time it hung in the air a little more heavily.

“Maybe.” Poplin shook her head, ending the conversation.

Her job was not made any easier the next day knowing that Tuck wasn’t there and wasn’t coming back. Every time she passed his loom she had to look away. It’s silence somehow filled the air more potently than the clacking of hundreds of looms, and 

She used to bend over his shoulder and whisper absurdities in his ear, anecdotes about her morning, or jokes, or idle gossip about their neighbours. Sometimes it would be more serious things, like when their next planning meeting was, or who that day’s red flowers had been for.

Sometimes he would throw lines in the weaving when he could feel her behind him, so she would bend over to correct him, and he would whisper things in her ear. They all did it, but Tuck did it the most back then. They’d both been summoned for chastisement once, and firmly reminded to keep their personal lives out of the factory.

She had barely talked to him in two years, but that didn’t mean that the knife in her heart didn’t twist with guilt every time she passed the empty seat. Even though they had only ever been pretending when they acted out their couples’ charade for all those years, she still loved him.

When its silence became too much and everyone was well into the shift, she sat at his loom and began to weave. Shuttle to the left, hit the pedal, to the right, second pedal, left, third pedal, right, the first again. Perfect poplin, exactly what she had been named for. Tougher than it looked in stainless white, and exactly what the Peacekeepers needed for their oppressive duties. She threw a line in the pattern just for the sake of it, a silent ‘fuck you’ that no one but the people of District Eight would even notice, let alone appreciate. 

Tuck would have loved it. He would have laughed at her and thrown a line purposefully every ten yards, making them look like simple mistakes, but making sure that every Peacekeeper’s uniform would have at least that one weakness. She would have never dared be that obvious. That had always been the difference between them.

The sound of the clacking looms echoed through the lofty hall of the factory and washed over her, a momentary luxury as she her hands and feet flew through the pattern. They demanded no attention once she set her pace, so she churned out a yard and let her mind sink into the rhythm, dulling the pain and letting her think of what she wanted to do next.

A cry came from further down the row, breaking Poplin’s daze before she had reached a conclusion, and Poplin stopped her loom - no, Tuck’s - to check for injuries. She tapped everyone who looked like they had been distracted as she , reminding them they had a quota to fill.

The girl was new to the looms, only twelve years old. She remembered when she had been that young, all of her learning in school somehow seeming useless in the face of the massive web of threads and machinery in front of her. The girl had pricked herself on one of the spools, a simple enough mistake. There were just a few drops of blood, so Poplin pulled a small bandage from her apron and plastered it on the girl’s fingertip.

“This’ll need to be cut once the stained threads are weaved out,” Poplin instructed her. “There’s an empty loom up the aisle. It’s already set up, between Fly and Drew. Pick up where it’s left off. I’ll finish this and leave it ready for the shift switch.”

The girl obeyed quickly, grateful to have avoided major trouble. Some would have said that Poplin was being soft on her, but Poplin couldn’t let herself sit at Tuck’s loom again. Nothing good would come of it. 

Instead she picked up the girl’s pattern, and began to weave again. There was blood on the warp, and as the weft hit it, it seeped into it. As she wove, slower than usual to avoid wasting the thread, four spots bloomed in the fabric. They looked like the flowers for Tuck and Connie and Timm and Rewla on the pristine Justice Building steps. 

When she was done, she wove out some extra, and started the set up so she could make the clean cuts to finish the rounds of fabric. She sliced before the flowers and after them, taking the stained fabric, rolling it tightly, and tucking it into her apron pocket. Somehow, this little thing felt like a reminder that she had to keep safe.

She scribbled a note explaining what had happened onto the board beside the loom, so the poor girl wouldn’t get into any trouble for producing less than her quota, and returned to her patrol.

She paused behind Purl, long the rebellion’s best messenger, and made up her mind. She leaned forward and whispered in the old woman’s ear: “Tell them okay. I’m ready again.”


End file.
